Geldard-Brown, Mabel, 1890- : A native of Scotland, Mabel Geldard-Brown has had a diverse career as a social worker specializing in international relief and migration. During 1917-1919 she was an administrator for the Macedonian Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospitals (in Greece). Geldard-Brown worked as assistant and organizing secretary for the SHS Child Welfare Association in Serbia (1919-1921), and then became a representative of the British Committee for Relief (Poland, 1922-1923), an organization concerned with the welfare of children in orphanages and internment camps. During 1925-1928, and again briefly in 1944, she was employed by the International Migration Service, an organization set up by the World's YWCA in response to the social problems arising from increased international migration after World War I.
She served as both field secretary at the head office in Geneva, and as director of the Greek branch.
The Canadian phase of Geldard-Brown's career began in 1928, when she became port secretary for the Young Women's Christian Association of Canada in St John and Quebec. Her work consisted of meeting immigrants and helping them through their first days in Canada. From 1929 to 1932 she continued her YWCA work as executive secretary of the Social Service and International Departments in Toronto, where she initiated the YWCA's International Girls' Club.
During 1932-1935 Geldard-Brown worked at the Iverley Settlement in Montreal, a recreational, educational and social club that was part of Montreal's social service network. Geldard-Brown was then employed by the Family Welfare Association in Montreal (1935-1942), but was loaned to the Directional Service for the Families of Enlisted Men in 1940. She moved to the Department of National Defence's Dependents' Board of Trustees in 1942 when it took over the work of the Directional Service.
In 1944 she left the DBT and became a Displaced Persons Specialist with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, staying until 1946.
After a brief stint with the Canadian Relief to Greece Appeal (1947), Geldard-Brown was engaged by the Canada Department of Labour as a Displaced Persons Specialist and later to work on a scheme to assist the immigration of British women to Canada as domestic servants. After her retirement in 1953, she operated a small business retailing Scottish sweaters in Knowlton, Quebec.
